Mutual World Save-age
by Sandy S
Summary: Set just prior to Season 12 of BtVS. Cordelia pays another visit to the earthly plane – this time to warn Buffy and Spike about the future. Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns all. Spike/Buffy, Cordelia


The red glow of her alarm clock said it was two-thirty in the morning when Buffy startled awake. She had no idea why she woke because when Spike was cuddled up next to her, she always slept like the dead – no pun intended.

His hand shifted over her belly, and his lips pressed a gentle kiss on the back of her neck, sending a million tingles over her body. Several months ago, she finally let herself tell him that she loved him, and now she expressed the depth of her feelings all the time. The way he looked at her when she said those three little words made her wish that she'd found the courage to say them sooner or ignored his command not to say anything until they were safe and the mission was done. They were always waiting to make their words match their actions, and now, she saw the folly of that waiting.

Spike's muscles went rigid behind her, and he sat up with an abruptness that sent the air conditioning crashing over her bare flesh. She shivered as goosebumps raised an army on her arms. With a voice scratchy with sleep, he spoke with hardness. "Come on out from wherever you're hiding. I know you're there."

Buffy scrambled to a sitting position. Someone was here? That's what woke her up. She reached over and turned on the lamp. The light poured through the room, and a familiar figure appeared in their bedroom doorway.

"Cordelia?" Buffy was confused. She knew her friend was dead. How was she standing here and how had she gotten into the apartment?

"It's me. Yeah." She flicked a long dark curl over her shoulder and held up a tan hand at Spike. "And before you freak out on me and try to bite me again like the last time you saw me, I'm not evil. And Buffy, I can_not_ believe you're dating him."

"You're not doing yourself any favors on the biting front," Spike growled, his chest bare, the sheet barely covering his hips.

Cordelia smirked at him. "I don't have much to go on with you, you know. Cut me a break."

"You tried to bite her?" Buffy was half-amused, half-curious.

Spike regarded his girlfriend with nostalgia on his face. "Yeah. But only because that Lindsey bloke was posing as Doyle, and he told me that she had nefarious motives."

Cordelia rolled her eyes, but Buffy detected a hint of sadness there, too. "Which I didn't."

Buffy remembered that Doyle had died not long after Cordy moved to L.A.; Angel had told her during that visit after she clawed her way out of her grave. She neatly pushed the feeling of sorrow tied to that period back inside the box of emotions that she rarely examined too closely.

"I never got to apologize," Spike said with sincerity.

Cordelia dismissed it. "No need. I get it. Sorry to appear out of nowhere, but time was of the essence and I came as soon as I could."

Buffy felt her trust growing. Spike was more relaxed; this was evidently Cordelia. "Why are you here? And where did you come from?"

"And Buffy." Cordelia closed her eyes and sighed. "This was a very long time ago. But you helped remind of my inner queen when we were being hunted at homecoming. When I admitted that I loved Xander. I was kinda a bitch about things, but you gotta admit that the run for homecoming queen was serious business."

Buffy grinned. "And we totally won that fight together."

"We did!" Cordelia returned the grin, her wide smile familiar but warmer than it used to be. "Now, that we've established that I'm actually Cordelia because duh, who else would I be? I have something important to tell you. And before they figure out I snuck out to warn you and before the camouflage disappears."

Buffy frowned. "You snuck out?"

Cordelia huffed. "Away from the regular powers-that-be meeting. The really long monthly one where we discuss future events. I pretended that I had to go get some coffee because saying I need to go to the bathroom doesn't fly when we don't ever need to go and there are no bathrooms. Can we stop with the irrelevant questions?"

"Get on with it," Spike urged.

"Right. I'll try to keep it short and sweet. Buffy, there's a vampire from far in the future. No one you know. But – and go with me here – he has all the memories of all the Slayers ever." She paused. "Including you. And he's out to destroy all the Slayers and steal their power for himself. Which is so of the bad for our dimension. And because he has all the memories, his victory is almost inevitable."

"Oh." Buffy's stomach tightened with fear. Great. Another potential apocalypse. She hugged her chest with her arms. "That's just. . ."

Spike put his arm around her, his cool fingers reassuring as he stroked her bicep. "Tell us there's something that gives us some wiggle room."

Cordy hesitated but bobbed her head once. "Yep. That 'almost' is the key. There is a way that you'll be able to stop him. But if I tell you outright and the memory is there, he'll know and that will defeat the purpose."

"So, what's the workaround?" Buffy asked, her initial dread pushed aside by this nugget. If there was a way to beat this vampire, she'd find a way to capitalize on whatever information she was given.

"And if you're telling us there's a bloody workaround, how will that help anything?" Spike added. "This future git will just suss it out with Buffy's memories, and then, it's all doom and gloom anyway."

Annoyance flickered across Cordelia's face, but it only lasted a moment and then, she was serious again. "Yes, to Buffy, and I can answer your question, Spike."

Cordy held up her hand and snapped her fingers. A stream of blue and white energy grew flowed out of her palm and then formed a small ball, hovering brightly over her hand. "This contains the information, which I'll bury so deep in both your brains that you won't know it's there. The vampire – Harth – won't know it's there either, and when the time is right, a switch will flip, and you'll know what to do." She closed over the sphere and it disappeared.

"Sounds kinda like mind control to me." Spike sounded completely skeptical. "I've had enough of other entities controlling my brain to last my whole unlife."

"I get that. More than you know. But it wouldn't be permanent. Once you have access to the information, any changes in your brain will dissipate and have no permanent effect."

"Like Willow wiping our minds to make me forget the pain of leaving heaven," Buffy whispered.

Spike pressed his lips together and held Buffy a little tighter, but he softened toward the brunette. "Heard about the excruciating headaches from the visions. And about Jasmine." Buffy wasn't sure what they were talking about, but she trusted Spike, so she waited.

Cordelia shuddered. "Yeah. This isn't some force that's going to try to control you. It's merely information."

There were several moments of silence. Then, Buffy said, "Say we do this. Say we take you up on this offer that might be our only way to save the world, how will this Harth vampire not immediately know something's up?"

"That's the part that you might not like very much." Cordelia sighed but didn't look away. "And I'm really sorry about it. But I promise it'll be temporary, too."

"What is it?"

"We have to take your memories for a bit and replace them with something plausible. Something Harth wouldn't blink twice at. But when the solution is activated, your memories come back, too." Cordelia said it so fast that it took Buffy a second to comprehend it.

As soon as her brain made sense of it, her response was immediate. "Um, that's a hard 'no.'"

"And that's exactly what I was talking about regarding mind control," Spike added.

"Spike told me what Angel did to my memories before. He took a whole day from me. Gone. Poof." Buffy crossed her arms and glanced at Spike. Angel had told Spike on their plane ride back from Italy long ago, and Spike told Buffy, one night when they were up late and curled up together in bed, making confessions to one another. "He made a choice _for_ me, not _with_ me. I don't remember a thing." Her heart still ached for her long ago self. It wasn't the first or last time Angel had betrayed her, and she didn't want to be with him, but his decision about that day still stung. She'd trusted him with everything back then even though he'd broken her heart when he left her behind in Sunnydale.

Cordelia's arms dropped to her sides, palms up in appeal. "And this would be very different. It'd be a choice you make together, and it would be temporary."

Buffy narrowed her eyes. "And what would memories would you put in their place?"

"I honestly wasn't sure, but I was thinking something along the lines of Spike doing something to mess things up between the two of you. It would be big enough that it'd cover anything lingering about this conversation and the hidden bit of information. A lot of the people in your inner circle would believe Spike might mess up." The goddess bit her lip.

"No! We've come too far. I love her, and she loves me." Spike's last sentence was tinged with the weight of past hurts, and Buffy found and picked up his hand in hers.

"He's right. It would make no sense given where we are. How far we've come." She laced his fingers with his cooler ones and squeezed. "That's not the choice, and no one would buy it. Not anymore."

Spike snorted. "Except maybe the bloody poof."

"It'd be a little obvious and totally wouldn't follow with the way our relationship has developed." She wouldn't trade any of the little good moments between them. . . even the ones from long ago in Sunnydale before he even thought about donning a grey-ish white hat. All those moments through the last several years brought them to the place they were today.

Cordelia sighed. "Okay then. How about this? You take a minute and think about – "

Buffy cut her off, shooting her a little glare. "Hush. Let me think." She closed her eyes and tried to clear her thoughts.

Several minutes passed during which Spike's thumb slid over the back of her hand and she chewed the inside of her cheek. She opened her eyes to glance at him – the vampire she loved so much. His blue eyes shone with love and trust as he peered back at her.

Finally, she said, "I don't want to do something so dramatic as Spike doing something stupid. That'd cause us too much pain, and even if I got my memories back, I'd carry that pain. He'd carry that pain." She paused to make certain of the words before she said them. "I think that it's a good idea that we aren't near each other." Spike's expression filled with hurt. "And the reason," she addressed him directly, "is that no matter how much magical red tape is covering our memories, if I'm with you, I'll know. You'll know. We'll pick at it until we figure it out because that's what we do. That's the kind of team that we are; that's the kind of family we are. That's how far in my heart you are. And if Cordelia's right, we can't let that happen."

Hope refilled Spike's eyes as she spoke, and she saw his shoulder sink in relief. "All right. What're you thinking, love?"

Buffy drew a blank on that part. "I-I don't know."

Spike searched her face and then took the step he knew she couldn't or wouldn't. "I think we should say that it's mutual. That things didn't work out because it's too quiet. Dawn and Xander are having a sprog of their own, Giles has found his footing as an adult again, and Willow is solid in her abilities and community. You could be questioning everything about us – about what you want your life to look like."

Tears filled her eyes. "But I'm not questioning any of it. I'm not questioning us or me or my life. I'm enjoying the quiet and lack of drama. For once in my life. It's kinda been the best thing ever."

Spike leaned over and kissed her then, and she relaxed into the tender affection with the usual hint of passion behind it. God, she loved him, and she wasn't angsting about her feelings for him. She was cherishing them. . . cherishing him. "I love you."

He caressed her cheek and pressed a brief kiss to her forehead. "Feeling's mutual, love. Not gonna change."

"I-I know. And we'll find the way back to each other again?"

"I have no doubt." He sounded resolute.

A tear spilled onto her cheek. "I guess this is better than the other way." She turned to Cordelia. "We'll do this, but you'll explain this solution. I assume we have time for that."

Cordelia smile was tight-lipped. "We do. I'll make it work. While we talk, make me a cup of coffee on your Keurig? Gotta look the part when I go back to that PTB meeting."

Buffy let go of Spike's hand and reached and retrieved Spike's lounge pants from the floor; he still slept naked. She liked that he slept naked – the marker of his vulnerability with her. He caught the clothing with one hand when she tossed it to him, and he smiled at her. She didn't take her eyes off him when she agreed, "I could use a cup myself. World save-age is what we do. Together."

Spike picked up and kissed the back of her hand. "Together."

The end.  
7:14 PM  
8/11/18


End file.
